


Experiment 247

by spooky_nerd



Category: The X-Files
Genre: ...probably, Angst, F/M, Government Conspiracy, Hurt/Comfort, MSR, My First Fanfic, Romance, Suspense, this should be fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-07-27 03:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7600834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spooky_nerd/pseuds/spooky_nerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully goes missing on a case and reappears 3 months later.</p><p>*Currently updating and making some changes. Please bear with me; this is my first fic.*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. O N E

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: if I owned any of this I wouldn't be here now
> 
> A l s o...this is my first fic and I don't know how I feel about it, so let me know if you think I should continue. Feedback is appreciated!

 

The apartment is too dark. Darkness is to be expected at this time of night, but this is not the darkness of the small hours. That darkness is an old, cynical friend of his. No, this is a heavy, unholy darkness, dripping fear and suffering. There is a cloud of defeat that hangs over everything here, and he can feel it slowly wrapping its icy tendrils around him. It strangles him a little more each day. The cold seeps into his bones, from his head down to his soul.

She would probably tell him not to be so dramatic, if she were here. He nearly laughs at that. He nearly cries. A void has opened up since she disappeared. It is blacker than black, and if he thinks about it too much, he feels a pressure well up inside him. It severely interferes with his already-pathetic sleeping patterns, and he spends most of his nights struggling under the weight of his futile quest to find her. And, on the rare occasions that he does sleep, he almost always wakes up screaming, her name bouncing off the walls like a ricocheting bullet.

The shadows in the corner of the room whisper. _She will be the death of you._

But he always knew that.

During the day, he is a ticking time bomb. Anything can set him off. Skinner has had to intervene several times when he has come this close to putting his fist through another agent's face. Sometimes he has a good reason. Other times he just wants an excuse to hit something. He can't escape the darkness, even during the day.

Darkness is the absence of light, the absence of her. It makes him want to scream or send his fist through the wall or get angry-drunk or put a gun to his head.

He has done all but the last one.

A shrill electric keening cuts through the fog of his brooding.

"Mulder," he sighs into the phone.

"We found her."

The night splits apart.


	2. T W O

The prison has no name. Everyone in the town of _Reina Roja_ , Mexico simply calls it _La Carcel_. "The Prison." It is the only prison in the small border town, and its inmates make up half of the city's population. It is a dirty afterthought, set in the middle of nothing, foul and full of undesirables. And until very recently, it has always been a strictly males-only prison.

* * *

It takes him exactly eight hours and forty-two minutes to find the hell-hole. He feels every minute as a personal loss. It sucks his energy, his life-force, and he finds it difficult to draw breath. Although that could also be due to the smell of the prison guard he is now trailing dutifully behind. Surprisingly, _la policia_ hadn't given him much resistance. In fact, they had almost seemed relieved when he said he had come for the woman.

The guard shifts his body slightly to face him, and something foul vaporizes in the space between them. The strangely-stained uniform may offer some clue as to the smell, but he tries not to think about it too much.  He fights the urge to recoil as the guard speaks.

"They found her on the border a week ago.  Said she looked pretty messed-up.  Wearing some kind of, you know, like," he makes a sweeping gesture down his person,  "Hospital gown or something. Wouldn't talk. And she attacked them when they tried to question her. No ID, no papers. They didn't know where to extradite, so they sent her up here until we could figure out who to contact. Some idiot put her in gen pop at first. Rico Vareas, big dealer we got in here, he tried to get fresh with her and she broke all his fingers. We put her in isolation after that." The guard's words send daggers through him, and he swallows a sudden gag reflex. The guard is either unsympathetic or unaware of his discomfort and continues on.

"We got guys down here for the worst crimes you can think of, and they're all scared of her. Said they saw some _mierda loca_. Things happening they can't explain, you know? She don't eat or sleep, man. When you try to come near her, she just screams. She looks little, but she took down two guards when we moved her to isolation. You sure you wanna mess with this  _puta_?"

He stays silent. If he opens his mouth, blood will come out.

After a seemingly-endless walk through a maze of moldy, chipped stucco walls, they reach the far end of the prison, and there in the darkest corridor of the most deserted wing sits a heavy iron door. Blue-green paint is flaking off along the sides, revealing an impressively-cultivated layer of rust underneath. There is a small square opening in the middle with crisis-crossing bars. His feet propel him forward before he realizes it is happening, and then his eyes strain against the shadows, and he can sense more than see a figure huddled in the far corner of the small room. He knows it is her before he can see her.  Over the years, he has developed a sort of sixth sense about her.  Then he sees the shock of red hair. He feels his throat involuntarily contract. He looks back at the guard with the question in his eyes. The guard unhooks his keys from his belt.

"Man, you're as crazy as her."

He steps through the door and is instantly enveloped in shadows. These hold a very bad kind of darkness. It is the physical manifestation of human suffering. She does not belong here. He needs to get her away from this place. He can see that hair in the corner, glowing like hot embers in the small sliver of light emanating from the doorway. He waits until he is close enough to see her eyes to speak.

"Scully?" His voice shakes with the sum of his emotions.

She does not scream. There is no answer but her harsh breathing. He can hear it now. He wonders if it pains her as much as it pains him. He is close enough to see her fully, now. She is pulled tight to the corner, knees up to her chin, trembling arms encircling them protectively. Her ill-fitted prison clothes hang loosely about her frame, but even so, he can tell she is far too thin. Her hair sticks out at odd angles, framing her face like some kind of fierce, fiery mane. She looks almost wild, and it strikes him as so un-Scully-like that for a moment he can think of nothing else. She stares at his feet, as if afraid to meet his eyes. She looks like she is trying to make herself as small as possible. She shakes violently. He kneels down in front of her and tries again.

"Scully? It's me. I'm here."

Their strained breathing mingles in the silence.  It's almost symphonic.

He reaches out to touch her hand. She jerks back as if stung, slamming against the wall. It echoes painfully in the small room. Her breathing quickens and he fears that she will hyperventilate.

"Hey, hey," he whispers gently. "It's okay."

She hasn't met his eyes yet. He wants so badly to see that glacial blue, it hurts. He feels if she would just look at him, it would heal him. If he could just capture the soul behind those eyes, she would come back to him.

He takes a deep breath and wills her to see that he is trustworthy, that he is safe. "Scully I'm here to get you out of this place. I'm here to take you home."

She finally looks at him, and he sees the lingering echo of pain in those beautiful eyes. He allows his hand to find hers again, grasping tightly this time. This time she does not pull away.

 * * *

He looks at her now, curled up in the passenger's seat of his cheap rental car. He marvels at how she can make herself so tiny. For the first few miles, he had felt her eyes searing into the side of his head. He could tell she was wary. Then she had leaned her head against the window and become still. He had waited until he was sure she was asleep to look over at her. Now he keeps one eye on her and one eye on the road. The late afternoon sun filters through the window, glows warmly on her face and she almost looks healthy. Her hair is fire. He drinks it in.

Her retrieval had gone much differently than anticipated. He had imagined a much more saccharine, and admittedly self-indulgent scene. The word 'disappointment' wasn't big enough for what he had felt.

You've got such a wild imagination, Fox, his mother always told him.

Instead of a tearful greeting, she had given him the unfamiliar look in her eyes. Untrusting. She had allowed him to lead her out to the car, but he dared not do more than put a hand lightly on her back. Even then she flinched and it killed him a little inside. As they filed out, the prisoners lined up along the hallway to gawk. She shot them a glare straight out of hell and they gave her a wide berth. They avoided eye contact as if they would combust on the spot if they stared directly into those eyes. Perhaps they would have.

Whispers had floated up behind them like spectres. If his high school Spanish told him anything, everyone was relieved the pelirrojita was leaving.

He tries to feel the essence of her thoughts from the driver's seat. Osmosis is the movement of a solvent through a semipermeable membrane...He had never paid much attention in biology class. He had been too busy creating novel-like daydreams or tracing the outline of Cindy Wilson's ass with his eyes to care about particle movement. But now he wonders if it's possible to be so close to someone on a spiritual level that you can actually absorb their thoughts.

The guard had expressed his surprise at her uncharacteristic calmness as he lead their procession to the outside world. He hopes this was because she felt safer with him, because wasn't afraid of him. That would be too much if she feared him. Now, he counts the miles by the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

He tries to imagine the violent outbursts that had been recounted to him at the prison. He has seen her knock men twice her size to the ground, but he's never seen her fracture their skulls, or twist their arms out of socket. The guard had entertained him with a few of these vivid stories as they had processed her release. His hand had trembled as he signed the paperwork. 

* * *

He blamed himself for everything, of course. They had been investigating suspected government experiments on civilians in southern Texas. Unspeakable horrors and senseless torture. All of the test subjects had shown up dead, their battered bodies dumped in random locations, so it was unclear what the objective of the experiments was. They had found traces of unknown chemicals in the victim's bodies. Upon further testing, Scully had done a DNA analysis and found that they all had an extra pair of chromosomes.

They were both unsettled. He had spent that first night on the floor of her motel room because it had reminded him of when she had been taken from him the first time. He had felt her mind drift to that place as she performed the autopsies, and he wished to God that he could've done them for her, despite his squeamishness. In the end, they had found the secret facility. He remembers the click of her heels as they had followed the long cement corridors to the epicenter of the facility, which housed numerous labs and far too many guards. They had been spectacularly outnumbered. Each had gotten off a few shots before they were subdued. He had just enough time before being knocked on the head by the butt of a rifle to watch in horror as they injected her with something that made her cry out and fall to the floor, writhing in agony.

He had woken up in a field just outside of town with no memory of what had happened. He found his way back into town and found that he had no idea why he was even in Texas. It was only when the local sheriff had driven him back to their motel and he had read the case file that he remembered Scully had come to Texas with him...and she was not with him anymore.

He had wasted no time in calling Skinner, and Skinner had wasted no time in getting on a plane. Because of the government's involvement in the experiments, they knew they had to be careful who they involved. They found the facility again, and this time they found it empty. Too empty.

There was no evidence that people had once been there, and there was no sign of Scully. At that point he had started to panic. Skinner had grabbed his shoulders and shaken him roughly back into the present, and then placed a few carefully-considered calls to some trustworthy FBI agents. Mulder had thrown up and then called the Lone Gunmen. The manhunt began.

Three months. That's how long she was gone. Three goddam months. Anything could happen in three months. The first time they had taken her from him, she was gone a few weeks, and she had returned barren. What more could they have taken from her in three months?

He lets his eyes wander over to the passenger's side again, trying to look for any signs of physical torture, but the oversized sweater and sweatpants he had lent her to replace her orange jumpsuit successfully concealed most of the evidence of trauma, save a few needle marks on the side of her neck and some bruising along her collarbone.

Once they cross over the border into Texas, he realizes that flying home is unwise in her condition. He has no way of knowing how she will behave once her initial exhaustion wares off, and the stories the smelly guard had told him were not encouraging. He decides to find them a motel for the night. Let the morning take care of their problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The town of Reina Roja is fictional. It is Spanish for "Red Queen," so I thought it was appropriate as the place Mulder found Scully. Let me know what you think. <3


	3. T H R E E

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight spoilers for season 5 here.

The Sunrise Motel has a quality of forced rustic charm that borders on dilapidated, but the blinking neon sun on the road sign was smiling and he was too exhausted to be picky. He had a brief but panicked internal debate on whether or not to leave Scully alone in the car while he got them a room, but in the end he decided to lock her in and race quickly for the key. She is still sleeping when he returns, oblivious to the relief pouring off of him in waves.

Exhaustion paints bruise-colored shadows under her eyes. He decides not to wake her, both in an effort to avoid disturbing her sleep and in fear of how she will act upon waking. So he carefully opens her door and gently reaches across to unfasten her seatbelt. Then he wraps an arm around her shoulders to steady her and sweeps her up into his arms. He cannot help but think of the many times he has imagined doing that. But even with his vivid imagination, he never envisioned this scenario. Her bones are too sharp, and he can count her ribs with his palm flat against her side. Then, as he walks, her head falls against his chest and he feels a piece of himself slide back into place.  He tries to commit the sensation of that steady pressure to memory. It makes him feel almost-normal for the first time in three months.

In an impressive display of dexterity, he manages to get their door unlocked without jostling her too much. The room looks more suited for the 70's than the 90's, but it is clean and the two beds are devoid of the sinister stains usually found in the FBI budget-approved motels they frequent.

He lays her down on the bed as gently as possible and manages to maneuver her under the blankets. Then he stands over her and stares unashamedly, wondering how she can look so beautiful despite the hell that her life has been for the past three.  He brushes back an errant strand of her hair and swears he can feel it singe his fingertips. He thinks of the nights he has spent on his couch, with the memory of that hair searing his brain. Suddenly, he feels the intense need to make sure she is real. Empirical evidence, she would say. He lays his palm on her cheek and rubs his thumb across her cheekbone, trying to convince himself that she is here with him. That it's not another dream.

Then she sighs and moves her head against his hand and the realization courses through him like an electric shock. She is alive. She is real. She is here. It is too much for him. So for the second time since he's known her, he grabs her hand and kneels by her bedside in the darkness and sobs like a child. He is careful not to be loud, but it would have made no difference. She is dead to the world.

But she is alive, and that is all that matters for tonight.

  
* * *

She wakes up. The first thing that registers with her is the soft staccato of muffled gasps. The second is that her hand is damp. She allows her eyes to slowly travel towards the source of the the intruding sound. It is a man. He is crying. He is holding her hand tightly in his and sobbing against it for all he is worth. Suddenly her memory of yesterday's events returns. He was there. He was a stranger to her, but she had the strangest feeling that she knew him from somewhere. For a moment she almost feels pity for him, but then she realizes he is probably one of them. Come to take her back to that place. But she has already made up her mind.

She is never going back.

  
* * *

He had stayed by her bed all night, crouched in that awkward position, holding tight to her hand like it was his only lifeline. He went through intervals of sobbing, falling into uneasy sleep, waking, and sobbing again when an errant strand of thought knocked over a memory of her. She never even stirred.

Now it is morning. His back is tight and his throat is raw and he is beginning to wonder if his behavior is bordering on pathetic when he feels her move for the first time since last night. He cautiously raises his head and finds that she is staring at him. For a moment they lock eyes and both are frozen on the spot. He is lost in her eyes but she is lost in her thoughts. Then, the spell brakes and she becomes fully awake in an instant, snatching her hand from his and scrambling over the side of the bed. And then he is staring down the barrel of his own gun. He barely remembers setting it on his bedside table last night. Stupid, Fox.

"Scully..." He tries, and he hates how weak his voice sounds. Out of habit, his hands go up in a surrendering gesture. "Put the gun down."

Her eyes are so wide they almost swallow him up. There are so many things in them but none of them are familiar.

Then, she speaks.

"I'm not going back." Everything is trembling, even her hair. But her voice is strong and her glare has not suffered during her absence. The gun does not waver.

His surprise makes him forget the danger momentarily. "What?"

Her nose flares in disgust. "I said I'm not going back to that place! I'm done with the tests. I'm done being your Guinea pig." The words are coated with hatred. The room is shaking with it.

_Oh god she doesn't know who I am. Oh god what did they do to her._

The gun clicks and he has about a second to think of the words that will save his life.

"Scully, I'm not here to take you back." The words tumble out so quickly they trip over themselves.

She blinks. The gun drops by a millimeter, and he feels hopeful. Then it's boring a hole right between his eyes. "No, you're lying. I don't believe you."

"Scully, listen to me." He is yelling now. It is the culmination of all of his suppressed emotions in the last three months. It's almost cathartic. "My name is Fox Mulder. I'm your friend, hell I'm probably your best friend. We work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We're partners. Three months ago, you went missing. We didn't know....We thought..." _We thought you were dead_. He swallows the familiar lump again and decides to jump over that dangerous train of thought. "Yesterday, we got a call that a woman matching your description turned up in a Mexican prison. So I went to Mexico. And there you were." His voice softens. "I didn't take you from that place so I could hurt you, Scully. I'm here to take you home."

And then he is aware of the weight of something he has been carrying since she disappeared. He pulls the badge from his pocket and tosses it on the bed in front of her. "That's you." She stares at herself and he wonders what it's like to see your picture for the first time.

He pulls out his badge and repeats the process. "And that's me."

Her eyes move back and forth between the two and if the situation were different he might actually think it's funny. "Now you've got the set," he says.

She looks at him strangely and he wonders if she would shoot him purely because of the bad joke.

But the gun isn't pointed at him anymore. It stares menacingly at the floor. "How do I know you're telling the truth?" She whispers.

His mind reaches wildly for something, and then it lands on his duffel. His hands are up again in an unthreatening gesture. "Wait a minute."

During his search for her, he had kept the case file on him like a talisman, occasionally referring back to it for some small strand of knowledge or another. Now he wonders if in those three months he had somehow instilled it with providential power. Because in his rush to leave for Mexico, he had forgotten to take it out of his bag.

He lays it before her like an offering. She accepts it.

She reads for what feels like a lifetime. He keeps forgetting to breathe. Then she looks up.

"Some of it's in your handwriting. The rest is in mine," he explains.

An entire spectrum of emotion plays across her face in the span of a second. He watches, entranced. Confusion. Fear. Disbelief. It's gone so quickly he wonders if he imagined it. Then her eyes take on that familiar liquid look and for better or worse he can finally see her there.  "My god, you were telling the truth," she whispers.

"I've never lied to you, Scully."

* * *

Somehow they both end up perched on the edge of her bed. The gun is back on the night table and a heavy silence smothers them for a moment. Distantly, it registers with him that the room is in disarray. Things thrown to the floor. It's a graveyard for motel paraphernalia.

He sits far enough away not to touch her, but close enough to feel her body heat. Despite their relative distance, he still feels drawn to her, like she has her own gravitational pull. If she were a planet, she would be Mars, he decides. Small and red. Close and far away all at once.

She cuts that errant strand of thought. "You called me Scully. Is that my name?"

"Yes. Dana Katherine Scully. Your birthday is February 23, 1964. You're five foot three on a good day." He suppresses a shiver at the surreal feeling these words bring.

She stares at him, and he feels as if she is looking inside him to verify this information. Excavating pieces of him and laying them in the open for examination.  Just performing another autopsy.

He assumes she found what she needed, because a moment later she nods. "How did you find me?"

"We have some friends who are good with computers. They ran some kind of search through hospital and police databases for someone matching your description. That's how I knew where to go." He chuckles inexplicably. "You must've been something. I've never seen so many nervous drug dealers in my life."

Her silence is instantly sobering. He suddenly feels desperate.

"Do you remember any of that?"

She hesitates. "Yes."

The word falls from her mouth and lands in the space between them. They both stare. He waits, because he knows she's not finished.

"I remember the prison, and I remember the three months before that. The rest is...gone."

He barely hears the last word. It is a puff of smoke. A shaky, terrified breath. He nods, slowly. "Okay, okay." He makes it a mantra, unsure of who he is trying to convince. He hopes the affirming gesture takes the edge off the panic in his voice.

By the look on her face, it doesn't. He has the sudden urge to grab her hand.

She looks down at their suddenly-intertwined fingers in surprise. She doesn't know this is what we do. She doesn't know during times like this, I count by her fingers, not mine.

He speaks. He wills his voice to be strong, for her, for him. "Scully, listen to me. We're going to find the people who did this, okay? We're going find them so they can't hurt anyone else. We're going to go home. We have friends there who can help us, and we're going to get your memory back."

She hands him that watery smile and he holds on to it for dear life.

* * *

After a few moments of silent reassurances, he realizes that she may not remember the last time she had a shower or a good meal. So he hands her a towel and a suggestion and she moves off to the bathroom. Then he pulls out his phone and dials 3.

Skinner always picks up on the first ring. "Skinner." His tone is clipped and professional.

"Sir, it's me. I got her."

"Mulder? Oh my god. How is she?" The sheen of professionalism in his boss's voice evaporates as soon as he mentions her.

"Honestly, I don't know. I can't tell the extent of her physical injuries. She was in bad shape when I found her, though. I think she escaped from wherever they were holding her and crossed over into Mexico." Then the big finale. "She doesn't remember anything about herself, sir. All she has is those three months."

Silence. Then a muffled expletive. He knows just what Skinner is doing. He watches it play out like a movie; Skinner pinching the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses, taking them off to rub his face, putting them back on to pick up the phone again. His personal stress-management routine.

Then a deep sigh floats through the phone. "Can you get her here?"

"I think so. I don't think a plane ride is the best idea, all things considering. We'll drive back. Maybe if I can just spend some time with her, tell her about herself, I can get her to remember something."

"That's a good idea, Mulder. Just remember: watch your back. If she escaped, they'll be looking for her. Don't hesitate to call if you run into trouble. And for god's sake be careful."

"Yes sir."

He hears a click from the other line, and the long drone of the dial tone reminds him just how far from home they are. He imagines it stretching out across the distance, all the way to D.C. He thinks he's never missed that place more badly in his life. Steam filters through the bottom of the bathroom door and the cheap smell of motel soap fills the room. He knows she'll probably be in there awhile. He calls the pizza place conveniently located across from their motel, and by the time she is out of the shower, the greasy box is sitting on her bed.

Even though she doesn't remember him, remember them, he still cannot help the wide grin that spreads across his face when she emerges from the bathroom.

"Hey," he says amicably. "Feel better?"

She nods. "A bit more human."

He laughs a little too hard. Relief can make you almost as crazy as desperation.

"Hungry?"

It was a stupid question. She eats three slices, and he feels his mood lift even more. It's almost unsettling the power she has over his emotions. If she blows on him, he'll topple over. He lets her eat without interruption, but then when she declines a fourth slice, he rummages through his mind for the right words.

"Well, I'm glad to see you still like pizza." He'd ordered her favorite. Pepperoni and mushrooms. She almost smiles.

"How do you feel?"

She shrugs. "I'm fine." Her favorite line. He wants to jump out of his skin.

"Are you injured?"

She suddenly becomes very interested in a loose string on her sweater sleeve. "...It's not too bad."

"Can I see?"

Her eyes flare. "Why?"

"I just want to make sure you're okay. I've got some medical supplies."

Later, he almost wishes he had not offered. She has removed the sweater, and now he can connect the bruises and make out constellations. He bandages the cuts, but he can do nothing for the severely bruised ribs or the myriad of other small injuries. She is shivering by the time he is done, and he turns away to allow her to redress, as if he hasn't spent the last seventeen minutes thoroughly examining her.

The surprise comes when she grabs his hand. He cannot speak because now her hand is atop his and the oversize sleeves of his sweater have fallen so just the tips of her fingers are peeking out. If he moves he will break the spell. He looks at her searchingly, and she gifts him with a small smile. "Thank you, Mulder."

"Anytime, Scully."

* * *

"Well, Scully," he says after he's packed his suitcase and she has changed into the extra clothes he brought for her. A loose t-shirt, jeans and doc martens. "Are you ready to go?"

She nods and they are off. For the first few miles, the roar of the highway does all the talking. He watches her examine her hands as if she has never seen them before, and then a thought strikes him. "Scully, do you wanna hear a story?"

She looks up. He takes it as an encouragement to continue. "It's about small, albeit brilliant Doctor-slash-scientist and a big spooky nerd." And he tells her their story. For hours, he tells her about everything. About their work and their lives. He tells her about the flukeman and she grimaces. He tells her about Gibson Praise and her eyes light up with curiosity. She smiles when he tells her about the night she sang to him while she protected him from the mothmen. She even laughs when he tells her about the time they investigated the vampires who drugged his pizza.

They grab dinner at a small diner and he continues to talk. He does not tell her about her illness or Antarctica or his sister or anything distressing because sometimes ignorance is the closest thing to happiness one can get. He wants her to have the good memories first. He even tells her about Skinner and the Gunmen. By the time they're done eating, they're both exhausted. They check into another roadside motel, this one with a happy cactus instead of a sun. She is asleep instantly, but he lies awake for a few minutes, thinking of her.

* * *

Fear splits the night wide open and he awakes in a panic, grabbing his gun and waving it around in half-asleep defensive maneuvers. Then he realizes that no one is there. Her mind is the enemy here. He races to her side and grabs her by the arms, shakes her gently "Scully, it's okay, wake up." Then his ears pop and he swears the room begins to shake again. "Come one, Scully. Wake up," he whispers softly but urgently. She thrashes and he struggles to hold her still. He ducks and barely avoids an elbow in the nose. She cries out and he raises the volume of his steady mantra. When it came to his dreams, she'd had it memorized. He is yelling in her ear now, and finally her eyes fly open. She looks around, terrified for a moment. Her breaths are ragged and for a moment she struggles against the arms holding her down. Then she sees him and the look in her eyes is unmistakable relief. She grabs his arm.

"Mu-, Mu-..." The words come out unfinished, but he knows. He grabs her and pulls her into his arms, where she sits, panting. She presses her head to his chest, right above his heart, and he knows this is no coincidence. She is listening to his steady rhythm, searching for some reassurance there. Something she hears causes her resolve to crumble. Her breath hitches in her throat, and she begins to cry. And the worst part is, it's silent. Silent tears offer no release, no catharsis. They are reserved for desperate, lonely situations. He cannot bear that she feels the need to hide herself from him. So he rocks her, gently, folds himself around her protectively. Then he hears the first gasp, and the heavy silence resolves into soft sobbing. His arms are around her, his chin resting on her head. He whispers to her. Small words for small hours of the night, for small hands that cling to him, for the small voice that tried to find his name, for the small woman that has claimed his soul.

He's been saving these words for her.

Soon, her sobs quiet. Her grip on his tshirt loosens and her head leans more heavily against him. He hears her sigh one last time and knows she is asleep. But he cannot let go. Not when her voice, reaching for his name, still lingers in the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, that was a bit longer than the others. As always, let me know what you think!


	4. F O U R

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> !

Morning comes before he can stop it. He wakes and everything is tinged blood-red, but then he realizes her hair is in his face. He had never released his grip on her, and he lays back against the headboard now, with her head resting on his shoulder. He brings a hand to her hair and tucks it behind her ear. He winces when she stirs. For a moment he is afraid she will hit him, but she merely pushes herself off of him and looks away to hide her embarrassment.

"Hey," he says softly, still afraid of spooking her. "Are you okay? You...scared me, last night."

She must sense his sincerity. She nods and gives that almost-smile he'll have to become accustomed to. "Yeah. Sorry, about that."

He's already shaking his head. "Don't be."

* * *

After breakfast, which involved him trying to coach as much food into her as humanly possible, they begin the second leg of their extended road trip. He estimates that they should be in D.C. by early tomorrow if all goes according to plan. He swallows a mirthless chuckle. He doesn't have a plan.

A nagging thought has begun to burrow in his head. It's hope. He can't ignore it anymore. "Scully, what did you dream about last night?" He wants to believe that her memories are coming back.

She doesn't look at him, but he watches as her shoulders heave tiredly and the window fogs up.

She knocks over a memory. He is nine. They are driving home from Martha's Vineyard. He puffs onto the glass and writes D.C. or bust on the window. His father eyes him through the rear view mirror. Fox, don't smudge the glass.

She is looking at him now. Reading him like a book. "If you're thinking my memories are coming back, they aren't. I dreamed about Them. The things they did to me." Her voice goes cold. Her eyes gleam a dark blue and it casts a strange light over her face. It disturbs him.

The muscles in his jaw spasm and he swallows nervously in preparation for what he's about to do. "Are you ready to talk about it?"

It's a stupid question. To her credit, she squares her shoulders and points her chin purposefully in his direction. "Yes."

He hears the exhaustion dripping from that word. He nods, but says, "Tonight. You should rest now. You look tired."

She hands him an appreciative smile and he takes it. And while she sleeps, he keeps time by the steady sound of her breath.  
He becomes consciously aware of the car when he stops for gas. It is a nondescript, black sedan and he is shocked to find it already carved in the back of his mind. He had noticed it several times on the road but hadn't known it until now. The smell of gasoline had always made him nauseous, but it has nothing to do with the acrobatics his stomach is performing now.

She wakes when he restarts the car. "Mulder, what's wrong?" Immediate. She doesn't even know him but she still knows him too well.

"We're being followed."

The way her head tilts is barely noticeable. A skill born of their trade, though she doesn't know it. "Black sedan?"

He makes an affirmative sound in the back of his throat. "We've gotta try to lose them."

She nods, but it feels perfunctory. "Or we could confront them."

He wasn't expecting this. "What?"

Her eyes are dark again. Too dark for him to see her in them. "We could corner them. Find out what they know."

"No. It's too dangerous."

Her muscles are tense. Her body is primed for an argument. "Mulder, we have an advantage here. They don't know we're onto them. We could take them by surprise."

This isn't her. She would never suggest this.

No, the voice in the back of his head whispers. You would suggest this. You're the impulsive, reckless one. Not her. But now they've swapped roles and it's unsettling.

"Scully, we can't. We've got no backup. You don't even have a weapon."

She jumps over this newest hurdle undeterred. "I've seen your ankle holster, Agent Mulder. I assume you're not keeping a water pistol in there."

Maybe it's the way she calls him Agent Mulder. Maybe it's his fear of this new side of her. But he snaps a little when he answers. "Damnit, Scully. It is dangerous and we're not doing it. Our best bet is to try to lose their tail and get to D.C. We have friends there who can help us." He catches her eyes with his and it softens him. "I know you want answers, and we'll get them. But you're gonna have to trust me. I'm not risking your life when I just got you back."

And now he can see her again. The cloud lifts from her face and her eyes are light blue when she says, "okay."

Evasive maneuvers are a basic part of FBI training, but they are a bit more difficult on endless, open stretches of highway. Still, he works with the tools he has: an abundance of cars and the freedom to go very fast. He takes a hasty exit that adds half an hour to their trip, but it turns out to be well worth it when he realizes he hasn't seen the black sedan for several miles. He indulges in a sigh of relief.

"I think we lost them," he smiles

* * *

Motel number three is actually a Motel 6. For once, he feels that he could fall right into bed and let sleep take him then and there. Constantly looking over his shoulder the entire day had been exhausting. He looks at her and he can practically feel the electricity crackling around her. He half expects her hair to frizz up from the sheer power of her own nervous energy.

He carefully picks out a few words. She takes them first. "I'm sorry about today."

His head is shaking forcefully before she finishes. "No. Don't apologize. I understand wanting answers, believe me. And I'm sorry for snapping at you." The weight of his next words drags his eyes to the ground. "I can't imagine what you went through. What they put you through."

Her eyes find the same spot on the floor and they both stare at an intricate stain in the carpet for a few moments.  It vaguely reminds him of a bunny.  Then, a quick breath.

"I'm ready to talk." She swallows something. Fear, maybe. And he suddenly feels the overwhelming need to protect her, care for her.

"Do you want some water first?"

A beat. Then a nod.

"I'll go get some ice. I'll be right back."

He trudges out into the heat of the night and wonders if the ice won't have melted before he gets it to the room. The ice machine grudgingly hacks up a few freezer-burnt chunks and he doesn't dare ask for more.

He doesn't notice the black sedan until he's on his way back to the room. There's no one inside it.

He feels the familiar pull of dread in his stomach. It tells him to run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, that was kind of short. But something big is coming I promise. As always, let me know what you think! Maybe you can guess the twist.


	5. F I V E

He runs. Breath tears painfully from his chest. His lungs burn. His entire being is one thought. His mind plays it on repeat.

 _ScullyScullyScullyScully_.

The door is ajar. He did not leave it ajar. He careens into the room and there they are. Everything about them is purposefully nondescript, and this is what makes them so recognizable. Average height, average build, average faces cleanly shaven. They are nothingness personified. They are men in black.

He curses himself for not thinking to bring his gun to get ice. The necessity of that angers him.

These men anger him. One of them has wrapped his fingers forcefully around her arm, adding new stars to the intricate constellation of bruises there. The other has a gun pointed right at her head. She looks at him and her eyes are about to swallow him up again. They are a mix of so many things, none of them good.

His gun, for its part, lies uselessly on the bedside table.

"Let her go!" The words bubble up from the pit of rage in his stomach and rip forcefully from his throat. It's almost carnal.

The one touching her smiles. The one with the gun turns and suddenly the possibility of being shot is burning a hole through him. His skin crawls. "Out of the way." The voice oozes threat, but it feels contrived, like a performance. Just another government charade.

And now he's thinking of her and she's making him foolish again. "No."

The click of the gun.

Then, not what he expected. That strangely familiar sensation settles on him like a bad headache. The room begins to shake again, and he realizes it hasn't been the product of angst-ridden musings and repressed anxiety. It's real, and it's happening now. The first two times, it was a faint whisper, a vaguely unsettling sensation. Now, his ears are popping with the force of it. His gun rattles on the nightstand. The motel-esque idyllic stock photos rattle on the walls. The dim lights flicker with the power of something untold. 

The two men in black seem less surprised than he is. The one with the gun points it back at her. Then, a dark blur passes across his vision and before he can register the sight of two fully-grown men flying past him, they are lying in a heap against the far wall.

His heart is trying to break free from his body. He can't get enough oxygen. And she is leaning against the wall looking spent.

"Scully what the hell was that." He barely strings the words together. It's an act of desperation.

The men in black do not move. Unconscious, he tells himself. He steals a glance at her and she is holding her head now, with the sudden look of over-exertion. He wants to go to her, but a thought jumps in front of him, stops him dead.

"Scully. What the hell was that?" The words are more forceful now. Heavy with significance.

She looks at him now and her face is agonized. A cracked whisper breaks through. "Mulder. We need to talk."

He doesn't want to talk anymore. He knows he won't like what he hears.

* * *

They are on the road again. The roar of the pavement is reassuring. Distance and speed; those are what he needs now. He calls Skinner, who is appropriately disconcerted about the night's events. Skinner even offers them a safe house for the night, but they have six hours 'til D.C. and he's not even a little tired anymore. He tells his boss they'll be home by early morning. After more promises to exercise extreme caution, he hangs up and looks at her.

She is dry-swallowing the bright orange painkillers he gave her. She throws them back. He thinks of the prison jumpsuit. Orange always clashes with red.

"Scully." Her name is a whispered prayer for the state of things to come. "Talk to me. What happened in there?"

The sigh comes from a part of her he's never seen. She pulls it from deep down, and when she breathes it out, it clouds the car with the world-weary exhaustion of someone much older than her. "I think I need to start at the beginning."

  
* * *

The first thing she notices upon waking is the cold, hard pressure of cement beneath her. The second is that she can see nothing. The darkness settles like a veil over her eyes and she can hardly tell whether they are open or closed. The third thing is that everything is...off. And then the final realization: she can't remember anything. She ponders this with a startling passivity that can be found in those who don't remember what they're missing. She feels like an afterthought. And the strangest part is that she doesn't even know what she looks like.

She is tracing her hands along her face, trying to turn it into some vision of herself, when she hears a noise from outside her door. Her hands fly instinctively and inexplicably to her hip, as if searching for something she knows not what. Then the door opens and she sees the face that will haunt her for months to come.

She knows Dr. Smith is not his real name. And it irritates her that he feels the need to continue this charade as if it is not the most obvious thing in the world. She is not stupid. She's just empty. And he wastes no time in filling her mind with memorable experiences. She finds she is not squeamish. The needles don't bother her; just what's in them. There is one that traces a burning path through her veins. She feels the licking flames underneath her skin, it nearly makes her a believer in spontaneous human combustion. She is startled to find that the screaming is hers. It rings in her ears, and this is the first time she hears her own voice.

There is another one that makes her feel as if every particle of her being is far too alive for its own good. The atoms inside her bounce too quickly off of one another. Her mind oscillates at dizzying speed. Her entire body vibrates. It makes her want to fly off of the table, but she can't because she is tied down with Velcro straps. She thinks of children's shoes, and she is surprised to find that she knows things about the world even though she knows nothing about herself.

Then there are the tests. They attach electrodes to her temples and send lightning through her body. She typically loses consciousness halfway through this process, and when she wakes to the smell of singed flesh, her stomach flips dangerously. When they are finished with this procedure, her brain is fuzzy like a static shock and it hurts to think. She stumbles like a zombie as they return her to her cell.

She fights. Kicks, screams, punches, spits, anything and everything to get away. She hurls curses at them that surprise and impress her in their specificity and creativity, and she wonders where she could have learned these. They always punish her for fighting. The guards need something to keep them entertained, Dr. Smith says almost apologetically. She must understand, he says, and she does understand. This is why she keeps fighting.

She is always ready when the guards come for her. But one day, she is not ready for what happens. The first one grabs her arm, and suddenly he is flying across the room,slamming into the opposite wall in the hallway outside of her room. The thud echoes sickeningly and he does not get up. There are no tests that day, but she knows that Dr. Smith is watching her through the cameras. She can sense it somehow. They tell her she killed the guard. She feels no remorse because she hardly understands what happened. Surprisingly, she receives no punishment. Dr. Smith is sickeningly, inappropriately jovial.

The tests change after that. They still put electrodes on her head, but this time they induce anger or fear and measure her reactions. She notices that things seem to fall or go flying around the room when this happens, and it doesn't take long for her to realize that somehow her mind has expanded its reach outside of her body to touch the things of the outside world. She is sitting in the dark void of her cell when it hits her, and suddenly the staccato of half-crazed laughter is bouncing off the walls. She laughs partly at the terrifying absurdity of it all. Partly because she knows this place is driving her insane (it's hard to keep a grip on yourself when you don't know who you are). And partly because they don't realize they just provided her with a means to escape.

She waits until nightfall to act. First, she rips the security camera from the wall. Then, she blows the door off its hinges. She runs.

She doesn't make it far before the guards find her, but she sends them flying before they can grab her. Her head is pounding a steady, painful beat now, but she remembers a side door she's seen them use before. She throws herself at it just as the first shouts reverberate off the cinder block walls behind her. She stumbles in her first glimpse of sunlight and shields her eyes, looking for deliverance. She finds a supply truck sitting unmanned nearby and hops in just as the guards begin spilling out of her escape door. She discovers that she knows how to hot wire a car. Then she discovers she knows how to drive. The significance of her new discoveries falls away unnoticed as she crashes through the front gate and speeds away just before the first sirens let loose a haunting moan.

She drives until the road behind her is reassuringly empty. Then she ditches the car and climbs another fence and ends up in Mexico. He knows the rest of the story from there.

* * *

He had held it together through her story, but as soon as her last words fall through the air, he gives out. He pulls over to the shoulder and sits rubbing his face, trying to banish the pressure of a sudden unholy mix of emotions that is building behind his eyes. He feels nauseated. 

_Jesus Christ what did they do to you?_

"Scully why didn't you tell me?" He groans through shaky hands.

"I didn't know how."

Something in her voice draws his eyes. Then he realizes how selfish he is acting. Silent tears race down her cheeks and trace salty patterns across the line of her jaw. Her hands twitch in her lap, as if in search of some source of comfort. She makes him hate himself sometimes.

He takes her hands.  "Scully, look at me." She does and he swears she is trying to peer through him again.

"It's going to be okay," he whispers simply.

She sniffs.

"This doesn't change anything. We're in this together. We're going to get home and we're going to figure this out."

She nods resolutely and raises her chin in defiance against the whole world, and in that moment he knows that, in spite of their odds, he loves her more than ever.

He squares his shoulders against the weight of things to come. Then he takes them home.

* * *

It is just before 6 AM when they reach D.C. He drives straight to her apartment, spurred on by the naive hope that familiar surroundings will give her something about herself. She inspects the place curiously, but receives no revelations. He is disappointed and unsurprised.

Skinner arrives ten minutes after they do, and he has the look of someone who can't remember the last time he's had a good night's sleep.  Though from the way his eyes pinch painfully when he sees them, they look decidedly worse.  He directs his gaze to Scully, and they eye one another awkwardly for a moment.

"Agent Scully, it's good to see you back. Mulder says you don't remember much. I'm Walter Skinner."

She nods, making an effort to maintain eye contact. "Agent Mulder, he...told me a little. I know you're our boss."

Skinner nods professionally. "Good. I'm glad you two made it back safely." And looking at her, "How do you feel?" 

Mulder recognizes now when she's trying to be strong. She stands up straighter and points her chin determinedly. "I'm fine."

Skinner has had years of practice seeing through her facade. "Mulder, how is she really?"

"She's got some minor injuries. We're both a bit shaken, I think. What happened last night was..." He is moving restlessly now, trying to grab onto something, anything, and suddenly his mind is too full to finish the sentence. He replays the events of the previous night and suppresses a shudder.

"What did happen last night, Agent Mulder? It was a little unclear over the phone."

He oscillates on the spot. His mouth opens and closes a few times, but he cannot find the words to begin. He looks at Scully, who has now become intensely interested in the color of her carpet.

He makes a fruitless noise and gestures loosely to the living room. "Sir, you might want to sit down for this."

Mulder guides Scully to the couch, where he sits close enough to her to hear her breathing. He forces himself to match her rhythm. It helps, slightly. He shifts his body so he is facing her. "Scully, do you think you can tell him what you told me?"

Skinner perches on the ottoman in front of them. Elbows on knees, poised attentively but non-threateningly.

She nods. Then she repeats everything she told him in the car.

He watches her this time. Her face is passive, and her voice takes on the clinical aloofness he's heard countless times when she performs autopsies. He wonders distractedly if she retained any of those skills. Like an amnesia patient who can tell you who the President is but doesn't know his favorite color. Her eyelashes cast shadows on her cheeks in the dim light and he wonders what else remains hidden in her shadows.

Skinner, to his credit, does not react fervidly to anything she says. He maintains an unreadable expression until the end. Mulder tries to color it in, imagine what he is thinking, but their boss has spent too many years staring down his nose at ne'er-do-wells and government henchmen to betray his inner condition. When she finishes, however, the man pulls off his glasses and pinches that pressure point between his eyes. Mulder recognizes the routine, can almost feel the headache beginning. Skinner sighs, then, "Holy shit."

Under different circumstances, Mulder would have been surprised, and likely amused, by his boss's lapse in professionalism. But there are no rule books or behavioral guidelines for these circumstances and he surely hasn't been acting like Agent Mulder today. Today, he has been Just Mulder: Dana Scully enthusiast and worrier extraordinaire.

"This is..." Skinner is grasping for words. The right words. Mulder knows there are no right words for something like this. Skinner changes direction. "You can't remember anything about being taken?"

"No. I don't remember anything but the last three months."

Skinner has regained more of himself. He continues. "Now, I have a forensic scientist, Agent Keller. I trust him. He's also a doctor. I want him to take a look at you, and I think this will be safer, under the circumstances, than checking you into a hospital. Maybe he can help give us some answers about your memories. This is beyond anything I've ever heard of."

"There are certain drugs that are known to cause amnesia, such as benzodiazepines, but they're typically linked to anterograde amnesia, which is the inability to encode new memories. What I'm suffering from is retrograde amnesia, which..." She stops abruptly, as if just noticing the medical jargon spilling from her mouth. "How did I know that?"

Mulder is smiling at the words. They came so naturally to her that for a moment he was back on a case with her, as if his entire world hadn't been torn apart. "Remember I told you you were a doctor?"

Skinner's eyes mirror Scully's in their astonishment. "Does this mean your memory is coming back?"

Mulder answers for her. "I don't think so, sir. People suffering from amnesia are known to retain certain skills and knowledge, though they're often unable to remember how they learned them."

Skinner nods, but his eyes take on a distant look.

"Sir?" Mulder prompts.

Their boss shakes himself out of this far-away place. "Sorry, Agent Mulder. It's nothing."

"Who's the Cigarette Smoking Man?" The voice is Scully's but the words are strange. Her eyes are piercing through Skinner so intensely that Mulder expects them to draw blood.

"Why..." he begins. But then he sees that Skinner is not as confused as he should be. Judging from the grim shadow over the man's eyes, he is not surprised at the subject matter, but rather the question itself.

"How did you...?" Skinner breathes.

She could kill a man with those eyes.

"You heard that, didn't you? You heard me."

He looks between Scully and his boss and feels like he is missing a piece of this conversation. "Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?" His words are laced with frustration. He turns to her. "How do you know the Smoking Man?"

It is not her that anwers him, but Skinner. "She doesn't, Agent Mulder. She heard me think it." The man hands the words to him so simply, as if they hold an easy explanation. He turns them over but finds nothing.

"I don't understand."

Skinner takes a deep breath. "About two weeks ago, our smoking friend came to visit me. Same old cryptic routine, but at the end he asked about Scully. Said he heard she went missing. I thought he was just trying to get under my skin, so I let it go. A week later you got a call about a woman matching Scully's description in a Mexican prison. That would put his visit with me just a few days after she escaped from...wherever they were keeping her. It makes me think that maybe he was hoping I knew where she was, that he was involved with the people who did this to her. Now, I didn't say any of this out loud, because I didn't want to worry you just now, but as soon as I thought it, she knew." Skinner regards her with a formidable gaze of his own. "You read my mind."

Suddenly something slides into place and he connects a few fragmented events into one string of thought. Her piercing looks, the way she seemed to be able to see right through him at times. Her incalculable expression when he told her about Gibson Praise..."Jesus, Scully," he breathes. "Why didn't you tell me?" He is disappointed in the hurt that bleeds through those words. She hears it too; her face betrays her.

"It comes and goes. I can't control it. And the look on your face in that motel room when you saw me..." She chokes on the words, but she does not cry. "I just...I couldn't tell you, not then. I was going to wait for...."

"For what, Scully, a better time? There is no better time for something like this, Scully. There's no time like the present to tell me you can hear people's thoughts and move things with your fucking mind." He is wild now, and he knows it. But he cannot help himself. 

"Mulder, calm down right now!" It's Skinner's voice and it's just what he needs.

He closes his eyes and attempts to reorganize his thoughts. His mind is spinning and they are scattered now, but he feels duly reprimanded. "I'm sorry, Scully. I didn't mean...you know I didn't mean..."

She smiles, and for a moment, he can read her mind. She says _I know_ and he cannot fathom how she continues to stick by him in spite of everything. He only hopes that one day he will not run out of second chances.

Skinner's voice spills into the silence. "Scully, do you know why they did this to you? Did you pick up on their thoughts at all?"

"Like I said, it's an imperfect ability. It's weak, and it comes and goes. But I did get the feeling that they were planning for something. I think had I stayed, they would have...completely transformed me." She looks a bit nauseated. "But I escaped before they could complete their plan, so I'm...unfinished. I think their end goal was some kind of super human." It is her turn to pinch the bridge of her nose.

Skinner once again sees her true condition. "I should go. You're both exhausted. I'll give you some time to rest before I inform your mother you've arrived in D.C."

Scully looks taken aback. She glances at Mulder. "My mother," she breathes. He gets the feeling she hadn't considered that she has a mother.

"She's been worried sick about you," Skinner adds from her doorway. "She's going to want to see you as soon as she hears, so I'll give you tonight for that. I'll put you in contact with Agent Keller tomorrow." He stands to leave, but something draws him back. "Scully, I can't even imagine what you've had to go through, what you're feeling. But I can tell you this. We're going to find those men, and we're going get some answers."

She nods but maintains a heavy silence. Any words she would choose are crushed underneath the weight of her thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, things are starting to move now! Let me know what you think as always!


	6. S I X

Skinner leaves and if he didn't already feel confused enough, he's showing her to her own bedroom now. The past few days he's felt like he's been watching his life play out on some kind of surreal silver screen. Too much drama, unexpected twists. The kind critics love but audiences hate.

And yet he still cannot bear to part with her. Not when he is still raw with the pain of losing her and she is pulling him in with her own personal magnetic force. She weakens him, but torturing himself has become so much of a pastime for him that he actually enjoys it. She elects to wear an oversized US Navy sweatshirt and flannel pajama pants, and he finds he is pleasantly surprised that she actually prefers comfortable clothing to the stark professionalism of the button-down pajama suits she usually wears. He conducts a brief inspection of her drawers and excavates one of his t-shirts and a pair of his boxer shorts. He can practically feel the mixture of surprise and embarrassment that tinges her cheeks, but he douses her with a reassuring smile. With the amount of time they've spent together, it was only inevitable that their possessions migrated between suitcases once in awhile. He remembers arriving home one night, opening a can of beer and his suitcase, and nearly spilling Budweiser atop of its contents, which now included a pair of her silk underwear. He never told her about that one.

He realizes with a start that she has the power to dig inside him now and excavate these memories. She could cut through him like a fine-edged scalpel, bringing all of his insecurities and weaknesses to the surface. He wonders if it would be painful. Sometimes, the memory of a thing hurts more than the thing itself. But he is a masochist, so he keeps each and every memory of her wrapped securely in his mind and within easy reach so he can replay them at will. She is a good kind of pain, most of the time.

In a blindingly brilliant display of chivalry, he offers to sleep on the couch. She nods, but then, almost like she didn't mean to say it: you can stay for awhile, if you want. Of course he does. So he finds himself on the floor, leaning against the side of her bed while lays on her side, watching the top of his head.  He smiles because this was their first night together. Because since her return to him, she's become his addiction, and he doesn't want to know what the withdrawal feels like.

They talk about useless things, but sometimes useless talk is healing. She is laying on her back now, and he sits up to watch her just because he can. She stares a hole through the ceiling and he stares a hole through her partly because she is astoundingly, regally beautiful in profile, and partly because he feels the pressure of some labored question mounting in the space between them. But he knows now that if he waits long enough, it will spill over out into the open. Four, three, two...

"Mulder...."

One.

"Yeah, Scully?"

"Am I an X-File now?"

There she goes again. Dredging up things from a lifetime ago. Her lifetime. She's the epitome of self-efficiency: performing her own autopsy.

He feels the significance of this moment like a dead weight, and with it comes the need to choose just the right words. Sometimes he imagines himself a good talker, someone to whom impressive words come quickly and willingly. But with her, his carefully chosen words bump against one another clumsily. She turns a smooth talker into a rambler and this is just one of her gifts, he thinks. Not as obvious as reading minds or moving the world with a blink, but it's a gift nonetheless.

He tries anyway. "Scully, I know you can't remember this, but from the moment I met you, you've been an X-file. The difference is, I could never figure you out. The way you've continued to stick by me despite the pain I've caused you, or the way you use your scientific reasoning to make me constantly rethink everything I think I know. How you can make yourself look six feet tall when you're angry. Hell, even your blue eyes and red hair. You're an enigma, Scully. You're my last and greatest mystery, and I'm never going to solve you."

A thick swallow and a watery sniff float up to the ceiling from her side of the bed. "Mulder, I want to remember. I want to remember everything."

He gropes blindly through the dark for her hand, and when he finds it, she latches on tight to this lifeline, like he will keep her from floating off into the black void of her mind. He gives her hand a gentle squeeze and crosses the invisible line that separates them to place two words with two meanings in her ear. "Me too."

* * * 

 

He wakes to a shrill keening, and for a moment he is alone in the unknown. Then, he feels the light warmth of a small hand in his own, and the reality of everything settles on him. He moves quickly to silence the offending noise, wincing as his aching joints protest. She is already awake, so he answers the phone.

"Mulder."

"Fox?"

His chest is suddenly tight. "Mrs. Scully?"

Something clicks and a soft light fills the room. She is fully awake now, face framed by a messy red halo. He thinks of angels and blood and realizes this could well be a metaphor for something. Her clock reads 5:00. They've slept through the day.

"Mr. Skinner called. He said you found her. Is...is it true?"

He lets out a breath he didn't know he was storing. "Yes, Mrs. Scully. I'm with her now."

She is regarding him attentively, alive with questions.

"Oh, thank God, Fox. Thank God." He imagines her clutching the silver cross that hangs around her neck. Her symbol of hope and loss and so much more. This thought dusts off a memory and he saves it for later. "Can I see her?"

He covers the phone and turns into the full heat of her blazing gaze. He doesn't have to ask. She nods.

"Of course, Mrs. Scully."

"I'll be right over."

The dial tone rings out in finality before he can respond. Mrs. Scully never asked where they were, so he suspects she has already pried the information out of Skinner.

"That...that was my mother?"

Her eyes are like her mothers', but brighter. Her hair is her father's but softer. "Yes."

"She's coming here."

It's not a question, it's a fact. She and Bill both have freckles. He's never seen Charlie. "Yes. She's been worried sick about you." He's always hated that expression. Worried sick. It wasn't until they took her that he learned the truth of it.

"Oh."

He gives her a moment to turn everything over in her mind.

"What am I going to say to her?" He barely hears the words. He suspects she doesn't know she's said them aloud, because now she is staring out into the emptiness, privy to visions of some other place and time he is completely unaware of.

He touches her shoulder lightly, and it brings her back to him. "I'm sure she'll do most of the talking."

Then, the thought he'd filed away while he was on the phone. "Scully, I have something for you."

Those words knocked over the memory. That abandoned facility, filled with the stench of cement and nothing. He and Skinner had returned to the scene to search for her. He'd found nothing but his own guilt, and then a flash of gold winked from near his feet. Her small gold cross: the iconic symbol of betrayal and suffering. He'd immediately donned it, resolved to carry it as a reminder of what was at stake. The cold metal bit against his skin, and he'd been cold ever since. It belongs to someone I lost.

Now he hands it to her like an offering. A donation to the church of Everything She's Lost. "This was yours. I...carried it for you while you were gone."

She accepts it, and he watches reverently as she reaches behind her to hook the small chain into place. It falls perfectly in the hollow of her neck, and he thinks of how it fits her much better than it fit him. It'd been choking him with the memory of her.

  
* * *

  
Mulder has always known Margaret Scully to be an incredible woman, but tonight, she proves herself to be far beyond that.

Scully had been a coiled ball of nervous energy as they'd cleaned up, and when her mother's knock sounded sharply through the apartment, she'd jumped. He'd tried to imagine the guilt of forgetting your own mother. The helplessness of knowing you're not directly at fault but still feeling responsible somehow. He'd seen the look of near panic flit across her face in that moment and decided to take it upon himself to answer her door.

Mrs. Scully was all relief and motherly terms of endearment for both of them. She'd given Scully first a tearful embrace and then enough distance to make her daughter relax a little. He imagines how her conversation with Skinner had gone. Mrs. Scully, we found your daughter, but she's empty. They'd all decided to leave out the more preternatural parts of her daughter's condition.

Like a true mother, Mrs. Scully had of course brought an unreasonable amount of food. Judging by the alarmed tint her eyes took on when she sized up her daughter's slight frame, she was probably telling herself she'd made the right call. Lasagna and salad and freshly-baked bread. A favorite of Scully's, she'd assured them. They'd spent the night talking lightly, though Margaret had carried the conversation because, as it turned out, the lasagna was a favorite of both Mulder and Scully's. Most of the talk was of old memories. She was trying to fill the hollowness of her daughter in every way possible. Mrs. Scully had painted a vivid picture of a few fond moments from Scully's childhood, and the wistful look that shone in both women's eyes for a fraction of a second didn't escape his notice.

Margaret had left promptly at 8:30, declaring that they both needed rest (though they'd only been awake for three and a half hours) and promising to check in on her daughter soon. She left Scully with a kiss on the cheek and a haunting look of melancholy love and the promise that Bill was applying for some time off to fly in from California to see her. Then she gave Mulder a grateful hug and a look so full of words unsaid that he decided to walk her out and see what spilled over.

In the dim light of the hallway, the oldest Scully woman had fixed him with a look so full of gratitude and affection that it had brought a sudden lump in his throat. And as he'd swallowed the threat of an unnecessary display, she'd finally let go of the words.

"Fox, how did I do in there?" She's the only woman he will ever let call him Fox. Somehow it doesn't sound so ridiculous when she says it.

 "You did fine, Mrs. Scully." Remarkably well. "I can't imagine what it must be like for you."

"I think you have some idea."

He could only shake his head. This was different, somehow.

"Scully women are tough, Fox. She'll pull through this, like she's pulled through everything. And don't blame yourself for a moment. The work you two do is dangerous, and she knew that going in." She'd laid a motherly hand on his arm. "Thank you, Fox. Thank you for bringing my daughter home."  She'd given him a final pat on the arm and a promise of prayer and then she'd whisked off in a perfect storm of motherhood, leaving him devoid of words and seriously wondering what was in the blood of those Scully women. 

He is not surprised to find that Scully has already cleaned up the place when he steps back inside her apartment. It is so perfectly Scully-like that he imagines for a moment the woman sitting on the couch, absentmindedly fiddling with the cross around her neck is about to start arguing with him about the validity of astrology or clairvoyance. But the universe is a fearfully vast and cruel judge, and it has other plans for him.

It begins with her, looking up at him through watery eyes. And it ends with a question. "How do you think it went?"

He wants to laugh. He wants to cry. Like mother like daughter.

"I think it went fine, Scully. You were great."

She nods, but it's empty. Her shoulders still bear that un-self-assured posture, and it doesn't suit her, he thinks.

"Why do you call me Scully?"

He should be prepared for these questions by now.

He shrugs but it's empty, too, because they're both empty now. "Same reason you call me Mulder. It just works, I guess. Do you not like it?"

"No." It's quick and he knows it's true. "It's...nice to be called something now. When I was...in that place, they just called me Experiment two-four-seven. They pronounced each number just like that, like they were rubbing it in."

He swallows more emotions, and he wonders how long he can keep this up before he becomes a human fountain of misery. Once again, there are no 'right words' for her. "Scully, I'm sorry."

She's shaking her head. She wasn't looking for an apology. "You know what I'm sorry about? I can't even remember my own mother. Mulder, seeing that look on her face tonight, it was awful. I...looked...into her mind just once, and it was so full of sadness I could hardly stand it. Her own daughter doesn't remember her. Can you imagine that? All of those stories she told me, I know she was trying to help me remember. I know that you brought me to my own apartment to try and help me remember, but it's not helping, Mulder! I don't remember anything. It's like...it's like my life is a book, and someone's ripped out everything but the blank pages at the end. And I can't stand it."

And now the tears are falling, and he's there to catch them with the pad of his thumb. "Hey, it's gonna be okay. We're going to figure this out."  
"What if it's not, Mulder? What if we can't?"

You could kill a man with those words. He could drown in them without even trying, but he's so close to her he can smell the salt from her tears, and he wills himself to tread water, for her sake.

His hands are at her shoulders now, framing her like a melancholy work from some forgotten artist's blue period. "Scully, look at me. We're going to see Agent Keller tomorrow. He'll check you out, run some tests, and maybe it'll tell us something. But it won't do any good worrying about it now. In the mean time, if you're up to it, there are some friends of ours I'd like you to meet."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? You can probably guess who the *friends* are.


	7. S E V E N

He'd called Frohike before taking her to see the Lone Gunmen. While she'd changed, he'd explained how he'd found her: empty of everything and everyone. What the bastards from who-knows-where had done to her. He'd even told them about the new, more inexplicable parts of her. They'd laughed, thought he was joking. Then his continued silence had slowly choked them and they fizzled out into heavy silence. After a string of curses and invocations of various deities, they'd pledged their help in any way possible. He'd think only after slipping his phone back in his pocket that he should've told them not to spook her.

She'd given him that skeptical look that was so classically her when he'd stopped the car in front of the inconspicuously grimy alleyway. It was her work face, it was almost iconic, and he couldn't help but think how out of place it looked with her grey v-neck t-shirt and jeans. He had wondered then if he was getting a glimpse of the real her, with no preconceived ideas or expectations to live up to, or if a person's experiences are what make them who they really are. Was she the rawest version of herself at this moment, or was she just a hollow stand-in for the real Dana Scully?

He'd trodden through these poetic musings to a cleverly-concealed door in the alleyway. It looked like a mistake, and anyone driving by would not have noticed it. But he knew, and he knocked, and after he'd given this week's password (it was "red" in her honor), he'd waited for the sound of eight different dead bolts sliding out of place. Then, the door had opened just enough for him to squeeze through with her and a bundle of questions behind him.

The Lone Gunmen were strange creatures, but Mulder had seen on many occasions that their compassion and dedication often outweighed their many idiosyncrasies. And, in a flawless display of that quirky sense of humanity, they'd lined up to shake her hand and introduce themselves. He could tell she liked them, even though Frohike had held her hand a little too long. They'd asked about her health and how she was adjusting, and then Langly laid it right out in the open: "Can we see it?"

She knew what he'd meant; they all did. She'd obliged by sending a few coffee mugs into orbit around them. He'd felt a sudden and intense admiration of the way she took everything in stride (that's how everything was with her now: sudden and intense) and it occurred to him that when you have no preconceptions about people, you probably find that nothing really surprises you. She'd pulled a wry smile out of nowhere when these words had gone through his head, and the realization came like a jolt of electricity that she'd probably heard him. She'd been listening, and he didn't know if that pleased him or terrified him. The way she'd subtly massaged her head after her display definitely worried him, though. Her previous words floated back to him. She was an unfinished product of something unholy. They hadn't finished her. He'd thought of the Island of Misfit Toys, but she was an island unto herself. 'Multiple Abductee Given Slight Superpowers in Incomplete Government Experiment' was a bit too exclusive to garner many constituents.

When the spectacle was over, the three hackers had marinated in their shock and awe for a few moments. After that, there had been a brief barrage of questions, which she had answered as well as she could.

Yes, she could lift a fully-grown human off the ground. Though not for long because it gave her a headache. Yes, she could read minds. But only if she concentrated very hard. Yes, that gave her a headache, too. No, their questions were not giving her a headache. (But probably yes, they were beginning to add to it.)

He'd come to her rescue with the true purpose of their visit, and the Gunmen went to work trying to locate the facility she'd escaped from.

While they worked, he'd entertained himself by watching her observe the place. He'd noticed that familiar line deepen between her eyes when she'd observed the various conspiratorial newspapers, the obscene mixture top-of-the-line tech and junkyard electronics, the day's worth of dirty dishes. Then a thought blossomed behind her eyes.

"For some reason I'm thinking of tin-foil hats. Is that something?" She'd asked him.

Yes, that was something, he'd assured her. Then she'd smiled, and he knew it wasn't for him. "What?"

She'd shrugged. "I like them."

Somehow the music of those words resonated deeply within him. She liked this motley group of friends. She liked this strange cluttered microcosm that smelled of paranoia and hacker's elbow grease. He'd taken her on a trip to his side of the universe, and she liked it.

Then, the moment was over. They'd located the facility. A decommissioned genetic research laboratory. And they'd found a name. Dr. Martin Jacobs. Several newspaper articles touted him as the prominent figure in genetic research. After 1994, his name disappeared. Tax returns, employee files, medical journals. He was a ghost.

They'd shown her the picture. Spectacles and sandy-blonde hair and odd grey-green eyes. He had the face of a doctor, but those eyes were not the eyes of someone who heals others. They were too cold.

She took one look and they'd all winced when their ears popped uncomfortably and the room began to shake as the laws of gravity and inertia bent under her influence. Her skin had taken on a corpse-like pallor, and it looked almost mordant with her blood-red hair. He'd grabbed her shoulders protectively, but she'd insisted she was fine.

"He called himself Dr. Smith." She'd sounded like the words haunted her.

Skinner had picked up on the second ring, though it was well after midnight. Mulder had given him the name, and he'd promised to look into this Dr. Jacobs in the morning. He'd hung up, leaving Mulder with the task of driving them home without running off the road. They hadn't discussed the events of the night. There was an unspoken agreement to leave it until morning.

  
* * *

He tosses the keys vaguely in the direction of her dining room table, and they land somewhere else he doesn't know where. Somehow he manages to peel his clothes off and it's an athletic event, but he eventually ends up in a pair of clean pajamas (he'd made sure to stop by his apartment and grab a few things). He throws himself on her bed, panting from the exertion, and a sleepy chuckle floats up from underneath the blankets. It's dark, but the moon casts an eerie light, and he can just make out the pair of glowing blue eyes that are watching him now.

"What are you doing, Mulder?"

"That's a very general question, Scully. You'll have to be more specific," he says through a yawn.

"Mulder."

"Scully, did you know that by the time we see the light from a star, it's probably already long gone? Can you imagine how lonely that is? Never being fully appreciated until you've left this universe?"

She sighs. She doesn't know that he waxes poetic when the moon comes out. She's almost asleep now. "Well, it's a good thing people aren't stars. Go to bed, Mulder; it's too late to solve the problems of the universe."

It is too dark for her to see him smiling from ear to ear. "Okay, Scully."

Then, a faint "goodnight, Mulder" and those eyes slide closed and she's carrying part of him off to sleep with her, he knows it. Because he feels more whole when she is awake with him.

She sighs, and it feels soft in his ears, and he knows she's asleep. He presses a gentle kiss to her forehead, and his lips linger for a moment, trying to copy the feeling of her skin into the novel he's written of her in his memory.

"Goodnight, Scully."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, what'd you think? Once again, you guys are amazing and thanks for your comments.


	8. E I G H T

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I am neither a doctor nor a psychologist, so basically I'm going off of a year of anatomy and an AP Psych class I took in high school.

He treads a nervous trench through the thinly-carpeted floor outside Dr./Agent Keller's forensic lab which is now doubling as an examination room. The brightly-bleached walls are glaring and the halogen lights are screaming at him. They had arrived that morning as scheduled, and she had followed the white-clad man with too-perfect teeth back through the double doors after a brief introduction. Keller had the starched look of a medical professional. Face clean-shaven, hair perfectly gelled, nails neatly-trimmed. Without a badge and the thick scent of strong coffee it would've been hard to pick him out as an FBI agent. She had thrummed with nervous energy, and Mulder's anxiety had tripled as soon as the doors closed between them. 

After what feels like too long but is likely only a few minutes, the doors swing open. He scans their facial expressions for clues but comes up empty. Both wear the patent unreadable, aloof expression of a scientist.

"Agent Scully, would you like me to tell Agent Mulder what I told you?" Keller chooses a warm Doctor's voice over the sharply-clinical sound most in forensic science brandish like a scalpel.

She nods.

Keller turns to Mulder, and Mulder tries to brace himself against something even though he does not yet know what it is. "Physically, we're looking at some significant bruising around the ribs, as well as a few other minor contusions. I did a CT scan, and I found no evidence of trauma to the brain that could account for memory loss. Normally, I would say the amnesia has a psychological cause in that case, but seeing as you told me she has full recollection of the traumatic events in question, I'm not so sure. This is quite an unusual case as it is."

He suddenly feels a rush of frustration. "So you don't know anything after the examination?"

In typical Doctor fashion, Keller immediately protests being stumped. "Now, I didn't say that. You told me some injections of unknown substances took place, so I did some drug testing. I can get those results to you by tomorrow. There are certain chemicals that can be known to cause memory loss. That could very well have something to do with it. Now, if that's the case, the solution is to simply cease contact with those drugs and allow them to filter out of her system. It'll take some time, depending on the size and frequency of the dosage she received, but after that, her memory should start to return."

He lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding in. It's quick and warm and the look in her eyes is shiny with hope. He lets himself smile for the first time this morning. "That's good news."

Keller nods, but his furrowed brow carries the hint of one last piece of information. "There's one other thing. Agent Scully asked me to do a genetic sequencing, basically a DNA test. I didn't see any reason for it..." Keller regards her like a curiosity. "...but she insisted."

Mulder nods. He understands. "So you'll get it done?" She gives him an almost-smile.

Keller looks surprised, but he recovers well. "Yes, of course. It shouldn't take more than a day. I'll call you with all of her test results."

* * *

They head out to the car, and he feels jumpy. But her face is set in a mask of determination. 

"Mulder, we have to go to that facility."

These kinds of things should not surprise him anymore. They shouldn't.

"Scully..." He can't find the right words. It's all wrong.

"No, Mulder. I know what you're thinking." _Damn, she probably does._ "We have to go and it has to be just us, and you know it."

Nothing he says will surprise her, but he tries anyway. "Scully, for all we know, the people who took you are still out there looking for you. It's too dangerous. I agree someone needs to go but it needs to be just me."

She is already shaking her head, and he knows he's about to lose. "I'm going with you."

They are at the car now, but he makes no move to get in. "Damn it, Scully! Why are you doing this to me? We've lost too much already." He shouldn't be yelling at her but he's never been as good at controlling his emotions as she is and he gets a twisted sense of satisfaction from it.

She is looking at him strangely now, and it hits him full-on that she barely knows him at all. Her eyes are confusion and pity and something else that's categorically undefinable; she's a tabula rasa. He suddenly hates that she can read him like a book while he struggles for just a hint of insight, even though that's how it was before. She could always read him. But now she's not his Scully and he feels helpless and angry and sad; these emotions never mix well together. He feels sick to his stomach now.

"Mulder, I'm sorry I'm not the person you knew. You have no idea how badly I wish I were, but I'm not. I'm not her." He casts his eyes to the ground. There is too much truth in what she says. "But if we can find the people who did this to me, maybe we can find her too. You're not going alone and you're certainly not leaving me behind." She points her chin and finally draws his eyes. "Besides, I think we'll work well together."

* * *

"One thing about working for the FBI is they can get you on a plane faster than you can say 'economy class.'" She smiles at his joke, although it's not a very good one. Munder had phoned Skinner in the car, and with the A.D's help, they'd found a cheap flight later that same night. Now, within the microcosm of the plane's cabin, he can close his eyes and almost believe that things are normal. The beds of her nails had gone white at take-off; she still hated that first moment of weightlessness. He had made a bad joke as always to take her mind off of it. She had offered him her bag of peanuts as she usually did, but he had declined because she needed it desperately more than he did. And now, in true Scully fashion, she is flipping through the casefile. She takes care to keep her expression unreadable, but he knows that their personal involvement in this goes far beyond that of any case they've had before.  

He is stealing glances at her every chance he gets, and the shadows her eyelashes cast upon her cheeks remind him of every flight, every road trip they've ever taken together. He knows her shadows intimately now. And if he closes his eyes, he can plot every freckle and trace every line on the mental map he's created. It's a part of why he couldn't sleep while she was gone; the first thing he saw when he closed his eyes was her. He is drowning in the memories now, and she surfaces from the file to glance up at him. 

"Mulder, are you okay?" 

He feels a slight panic because she must have heard. Or seen. Are thoughts heard or seen? Or maybe they're felt on a level that surpasses sensory perception. Maybe her gift is spiritual.

There is an untraceable expression on her face now. She must've heard. He's gone too long without talking, so he smiles. "Yeah, Scully I'm okay. Just thinking."

"I know," she smiles. 

He gives an impish smile in response and takes a sudden interest in the scuffs on his shoes.

"It's sort of a combination," she says suddenly.

The shoes weren't that interesting anyway. "What?"

"You wanted to know whether I see or hear your thoughts, or if it's more of a feeling that I get. It's sort of a combination."

He blinks silently and feels stupid for it. "Oh."

She looks guilty. "I'm sorry. I was listening. I try not to make a habit of it, but you just looked..."

"It's okay, Scully. I don't mind. Really." 

She must believe him because her lips quirk upward slightly.

"So, how does it work? When you...you know." 

She knows. "You know the little voice in the back of your head? The one you can hear but not really? The one that sounds like you but somehow different? That's what I hear. And then, sometimes if you're picturing something well enough, I can see it. Flashes of people and places. Like watching a film. And just now, when you were lost in thought, you were feeling something so strongly that I could feel it too. That's what drew my attention. It's why I asked if you were okay."

The ghosts of her words still echo in his head. He tries to shake away the cobwebs. "So you can feel people's emotions?"

"No, not usually. You're the first."

* * *

Alithea, Texas looks like it holds very few secrets, even in the dark of the small hours of the morning. The town is too small to necessitate an organized transportation system, and by the time he procures a rental car, he wonders if they should even bother with sleep. But one look at her tells him otherwise. He feels a pang of guilt at the dark circles under her eyes that she hasn't yet bothered to conceal with makeup. Those are his fault. She should be in a safe place where she can have proper rest and a proper meal, but she's out in the field with him instead.

When they finally find a motel, even he is feeling the pull of sleep. Exhaustion is tinting the edges of his vision, and his feet are land heavily as he trudges up the stairs to their room. One room, two beds; it's their new system. It's beginning to feel normal, and he wonders why they haven't been doing this all along. Bureau policy be damned; he enjoys her company too much now.

* * *

She has the dreams again that night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh, sorry. i know it's been awhile, but college is shit. thoughts?


End file.
